The Canon Pixma iP4850 has the same basic printing specifications as the Canon PIXMA MG5250 multifunction, but drops scanning and copying as well as the built-in colour screen to keep costs down. It's a lot cheaper, too; at £99 it's Canon's cheapest printer with a 1-picolitre print head, which offers good detail for both colour and greyscale prints.

Canon PIXMA iP4850: Design, connectivity and set up

The Canon PIXMA iP4850 doesn't have a flatbed scanner for scanning or copying documents, it doesn't have an LCD colour screen and it doesn't have any memory card slots for direct printing. We're only particularly concerned about the last omission — with the PIXMA iP4850 positioned as a photo printer, it would have been a useful inclusion. The PIXMA iP4850 is PictBridge-compatible though, so you can connect your camera directly and print that way (although you'll need to have the cable handy, and knowledge of your camera's printing interface).

Paper handling for the Canon PIXMA iP4850 is provided by a 150-sheet rear tray and 150-sheet cassette. When plain paper is loaded through the rear tray, the PIXMA iP4850 can automatically print on both sides — useful if you're trying to cut down on paper costs. You can simultaneously load around 20 sheets of photo paper (A4 or 6x4in). The PIXMA iP4850 defaults to plain paper in the cassette and photo paper in the tray, but you can change this within the maintenance settings of the printer software. Setting up the Canon PIXMA iP4850 and its software is a simple task that only takes around 10 minutes. The printer has two USB ports; the rear connector allows a PC to be connected while the front handles PictBridge.

Canon PIXMA iP4850: Printing quality and ink costs

The Canon PIXMA iP4850 is a competent document and photo printer. In Standard quality mode both monochrome and colour A4 documents have fine detail with no visible oversaturation or excessive ink. We found Standard quality to be more than detailed enough for everyday document prints — if you want the absolute best, High quality mode does make colour areas a little more vibrant. Automatic duplexing works well and is easy to set up and use.

Individual cyan, magenta, yellow and photo black cartridges makes the Canon PIXMA iP4850 an excellent option photo printing option if you aren't willing to shell out for a pigment-based printer like the Canon PIXMA Pro 9500 Mark II. The PIXMA iP4850 is able to produce very fine image detail in its well-saturated photo prints, with very few visible flaws. We did notice a small amount of detail loss in yellow areas of prints. Greyscale prints are also well handled, with only a small amount of graininess visible on gradients and good detail in darker areas.

The ongoing running costs of the Canon PIXMA iP4850 are reasonable going on Canon's quoted print figures. However, take into account the number of photos you intend to print, as these figures represent the rated page yields in terms of colour and monochrome text documents — photo printing consumes significantly more ink, so you'll need to replace cartridges sooner. A full set of inks will set you back only around £40 at Canon's recommended retail price, although we found them cheaper from online stores.

The Canon Pixma iP1800 is Canon's entry-level inkjet photo printer, which is clear if you take a gander at its price tag. Read PC Advisor's review of the the Canon Pixma iP1800 to find out why it's a bargain.

The Canon PIXMA MG8150 is a multifunction inkjet printer that has every feature a home user could want — good document and photo print quality, an excellent scanner for documents or film negatives, and wireless connectivity and direct printing. Its touch-sensitive interface isn't especially easy to use, however.

Smart home- or wearable tech: which is more likely to benefit your digital life this year?

I'm more likely to buy smart home- than wearable tech this yearI'm more likely to buy wearable- than smart home tech this yearI'll probably buy both smart home- and wearable tech this yearI'm unlikely to buy smart home- or wearable tech this yearNot sure/don't know